Charity Sunday: Streams of Hope

Streams of Hope

Grand Rapids, MI

Welcome! Today I want to tell you about another local organization called Streams of Hope.

Last month, I joined a few other local authors to sell and sign our books at a craft show in Cutlerville, a suburb on the south end of Grand Rapids, MI. In the booth next to us were a pair of lovely ladies who had a wide variety of items. We learned that they were from a local charity called that fed and cared for local residents in a variety of ways – through classes, medical care, after school tutoring, and so much more.

I took home a few items from their booth, along with information about their organization. I'm truly impressed by the scope of their influence on the community, and I promised them I'd feature them in this blog hop. Here's a short video to explain some of the things they do:

For each comment left below within the next week, I'll personally donate $5 toward Streams of Hope.

Check out the other charities featured on this month's hop:

The Wedding Favor by Monique DeVere

A wedding favor for her secret crush…

When unlucky-in-love personal assistant Erin Hart enters her boss’s New York office to resign her job, she doesn’t expect to exit as his fake-girlfriend for an upcoming family wedding. How is she going to keep her crush a secret when she has to share a room… and a bed… with Max for one sizzling weekend in the UK?

Workaholic CEO Max Ferrell understands women only too well: they either want his body or his money. But fiery, sexy Erin is different and recruiting her to help curtail his over-zealous, matchmaking sisters is proving that it’s far more fun to play while you work. Especially when his prim and proper PA helps him to set the sheets ablaze. But falling for her was not in the plan and if he’s not careful, the next wedding might be his own.

Book Details

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press 

Title: The wedding Favor

Theme(s): Workplace
SubGenre(s): Contemporary

Imprint: Champagne
Length: Rosebud
Rating: Hot (R)

Language: Clean

Keywords/Tropes: CEO; Fake/pretend relationship; boss/assistant to lovers; Frustrated Attraction; Forced Proximity; Secret crush; Tycoon Hero; weddings; working together.

Page Count: 204
Word Count: 52,289
Digital Price: $4.99

Paperback: $14.99 

Release Date: November 18th, 2019
ASIN: B07YRYZQ1S

ISBN: 978-1-5092-2884-3 Paperback; 978-1-5092-2885-0 Digital

Monique DeVere lives in Northamptonshire, England with her strong, silent type husband, four children, three granddaughters, and one far-too-smart Yorkie. When Monique isn’t working on her next book, you will find her spending time with hubby or absorbed in a good book.

The Wedding Favor can be purchased at Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | The Wild Rose Press |  

You can find Monique at these links: Website | Blog | Newsletter | Amazon Author Page | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook Fanpage | LinkedIn | Wattpad | Pinterest | Instagram | 

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My thoughts:
This is a light, entertaining romance. It was interesting to watch Max fight his attraction due to his conviction that he'd be a bad husband, like his father was. And Erin fights her feelings for Max. I did wonder about the heroine being 5' 7" and wearing a size 2, which is super small. That would make her extremely thin, and no mention is made elsewhere about her condition, so I'm thinking she's European size 2, which would still be quite small here in the US. I also paused when someone refers  to a helicopter as a helo, but otherwise the story flows well, and the secondary characters are quite entertaining. Both Max and Erin have sisters who seem to be quite high maintenance. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sequel featuring either Erin's oldest sister (who doesn't get along with the business fixer) or Max's sister Annabelle (who ruins Max's date because she left her husband).

Charity Sunday: Hand2Hand

This month I’m focusing on yet another local charity, one that directly helps the children in my community as well as several others nearby. Hand 2 Hand is an organization that collects and distributes food to hungry children. This group is headquartered in the church I attend in Hudsonville, MI, and I often see volunteers working as my quilt group meets on Tuesday mornings.

Hand2Hand was the brainchild of Cheri Honderd. While working with a literacy program in her local school, she saw that while children in low income families get the benefit of free lunches while at school, they go hungry on weekends. She decided to work with the school and the church to establish a program to provide a backpack full of food for these children to take home each Friday. Soon, other churches joined in to sponsor students in their local schools, and now 111 churches help to feed over 6,000 children in 192 different schools in West Michigan. Food is collected through donations from individuals as well as businesses.

Here’s a video about what Hand2Hand does.

You can read more about this awesome organization by going to their website at https://h2hkids.org/. There is a place to donate through the website, or you can simply leave a comment below. I will personally donate $5 to Hand2Hand for each comment left on this post!

Be sure to visit the other blogs on this hop to support their chosen chairities: